Fort Wayne food bank reports theft of copper wire

News-Sentinel staff reports

Thursday, February 14, 2013 - 12:01 am

Someone stole about 30 feet of copper pipe from a Community Harvest Food Bank warehouse last week, according to police.

An executive with the food bank called police Tuesday about the theft, which likely occurred sometime between Feb. 4 and 6 at the charity's warehouse at 1010 N. Coliseum Blvd., according to a Fort Wayne Police report.

At one part of the building's exterior, someone cut through a 6-foot-high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire to get at copper piping connected to an outside cooling unit, the report said. Between 12 and 20 feet of pipe was taken from that spot.

The warehouse manager also discovered that about 12 feet of pipe connected to an indoor freezer unit had been forcibly removed from the outside of the building, the report said.

The manager discovered the thefts Feb. 6 after the food bank's alarm company called to notify the charity of unusual temperatures detected in the freezer unit, the report said.